A gyertya a sötétben
by Kosovaheartland
Summary: Depressed, still recovering from her ordeal at the hands of Lewis and desperate not to be alone for yet another Christmas, Olivia takes drastic action. Elliot picks up the pieces. E/O, eventually.


**My first attempt at a SVU fic. This was a bit of an accident- I'd seen a few episodes years ago back when Chris Meloni was still in it, then I watched Surrender Benson about a week ago when I was researching for some upcoming chapters of something else I'm working on. It was meant to be purely for research purposes, but I ended up getting hooked and watching a few more episodes from various seasons, and then I had the idea for this and decided I'd try writing it down and see what happened. I do not own SVU, if I did you would be watching the events in this story on screen, not reading them on here and Eliot would never have left. The title is Hungarian, and translates to 'a candle in the dark'. It'll make sense eventually, promise. **

**As I said before, this is my first attempt at an SVU fic, my first attempt at writing E/O and my first attempt at writing American set fanfiction (I'm not American, though I've tried to make this as authentic as possible), so I hope it's OK. Reviews would be just fabulous, and if enough of you want it I'll continue and upload the next chapter soon xx**

**Chapter 1**

Her hatred of Christmas is something of a secret.

She hopes it's something of a secret, at least. She likes to think that she succeeds at hiding it, manages to look suitably enthusiastic during the build-up to Christmas, when every other conversation in the squad room seems to be somehow related to the holiday.

What is she doing for Christmas; that's the killer question. That's the question she always dreads, because telling a blatant lie is far harder to pull off than smiling and nodding and pretending to be engaged, especially to a room full of cops, people trained to see right through fabrication of the truth.

Then again, she is also trained to see right through that same fabrication of the truth (though it's not so much fabrication as downright lying), and consequently, she knows all of the telling signs of manipulation of the truth. And that means, of course, that she knows exactly how to cover her tracks, precisely how best to come across as convincing when necessary.

Coming across as convincing when faced with the 'so what as you doing for Christmas?' question isn't just necessary.

It's absolutely, unavoidably essential.

The first few years she was at SVU after her mother's death, she had put her name down for being on call over Christmas. It was the perfect cover, and she looks back on those first few Christmases working this job with something of an air of fondness, as bizarre as that might sound given how she spent them.

She looks back on them with an air of fondness because the presence of her name on the Christmas on-call sign-up sheet stuck to Cragen's door kept that goddamned question firmly at bay. People don't ask; that's something she learnt very quickly the very first year she tried that strategy, the first year it succeeded and she naively allowed herself to believe she had discovered the answer to all of her problems. People don't ask her what she's doing for Christmas as long as her name is on that sign up list, because of course Christmas is one of those things which people only view through their own eyes, fail to see from anyone else's point of view.

Perhaps that's because, annoyingly, there are some things in life about which 99% of the population seems to have the same opinion on, meaning that those who fail to share that particular view are lost within the masses, their difference in opinion never voiced because nobody ever asks.

Christmas, unfortunately for her, is most definitely one of those things.

Nobody understands. Nobody understands because although their lives may not be perfect (nobody's life is perfect, fifteen years in this unit of NYD have taught her that if nothing else), everybody else's lives are close enough to perfect that they all have someone to be with at Christmas. Close enough to perfect that they live in a world in which all decent human beings have someone to be with at Christmas, in which no one with a heart could possibly find themselves alone on Christmas day. They live in a world, they believe, in which people look out for their friends, in which no one they care about could possibly be alone at Christmas; they hold the belief that if ever they were to find out they would do something about it, include whoever it was within their friendship circle in their own festivities.

Maybe they would, maybe they wouldn't. That's not really the point.

The point is this: there's a rather unfortunate flaw to that logic, that reassuring belief held by that 99% of the population who look forward to Christmas, who have someone to spend it with.

That logic operates on the assumption that anyone with nobody to spend Christmas with, anyone faced with the prospect of being alone, would naturally speak up, confess when asked that they had no plans, would be alone on Christmas day.

Who in their right mind is going to own up to the fact that they have no one in their life who cares about them enough to want to spend Christmas with them?

Nobody, of course; it's almost ironic. Nobody is ever going to admit to having nowhere to go on Christmas day, because to do so would inevitably lead to invitations, and that would almost certainly make the whole thing a thousand times worse.

It's bad enough knowing that she's all alone in the world, that she's isolated herself rather spectacularly, has no one who cares for her enough to want to spend Christmas with her. Having somewhere to go and knowing she's only been invited because the host feels rather sorry for her, wants to do the right thing, would only make her feel even more depressed about it all.

She's far too proud to admit to the fact she has no one; no family, no real friends. Not outside of work, anyway.

Hence the Christmas on-call sign-up sheet being such an effective solution to all her problems during her first few years at SVU; all she had to do was sign her name on the sheet, and a Christmas period free of that dreaded question would be practically guaranteed.

She had learnt quickly that no one likes to ask someone down to be working on Christmas day if they have any plans for the time off they may or may not get before or after, because they're far too busy feeling sorry for them for having to work that day of the year in the first place.

It's perfect.

It was perfect; past tense. Sadly, it's not a tactic that works particularly often these days.

She remembers it well; it was her fifth year in a row signing up for working over Christmas which had seen Cragen call her into his office when her name appeared first on the rota once again, tell her that while he truly appreciated her enthusiasm, he wasn't about to allow her to work her fifth Christmas in a row. He had crossed her name off the list with a thick black marker, told her to spend Christmas with her family, turn off from work and enjoy herself for a change.

Somehow he had failed to make the connection between her mother's death and her volunteering to work over Christmas, perhaps because her mother had been dead and buried five years by the time he noticed.

Of course, she hadn't brought it up.

After that, he was always careful to ensure she never signed herself up too many years in a row; still monitors her over it to this day.

It drives her crazy.

It drives her goddamn crazy because she knows no matter how badly she wants to commit herself to working over Christmas for a lack of anywhere better to be, she can't volunteer herself to do it too many years in a row without attracting attention to herself again.

She knows he means well, of course. Everyone means well really, everyone at work. The trouble is, she doesn't want them to mean well. She just wants them to leave her be, let her get on with it alone; trust her to make the right decision for herself.

Why is it that working over Christmas seems to be the one aspect of other peoples' lives over which everybody seems to think they are allowed to interfere?

It was the loss of that perfect solution that was the Christmas on-call sign-up sheet, the loss of it on a yearly basis without fail, at least, that had caused her to begin to tell the lie. When she feels guilty about it, lying to her colleagues, that is, the closest she has to friends, that's how she comforts herself. It's not her fault; she's not to blame she didn't ask to have to turn to this less than honest tactic.

They forced her into that through their complete lack of understanding, their careless lack of thought.

Somehow she can't quite find it in her heart to be angry with them about that.

Her solution to the Christmas question nowadays, during the years she knows she can't get away with signing up to work again, is to tell anyone who asks she's spending Christmas with her aunt.

An imaginary aunt, of course; her mother was an only child, and although she knows from Simon Marsden she does indeed have an aunt on her father's side, she's never met the woman.

An imaginary aunt she only ever mentions at Christmas, who only comes up in conversation when it's to tell her colleagues where she's spending Christmas day, those years when she knows she isn't going to be able to get away with signing herself up for working.

Fortunately for her, no one seems to have noticed.

And by now, of course, fifteen years into her SVU career, the lie is deep enough that she's unlikely to ever be questioned over it, for it to ever be doubted.

It's perfect.

It's never failed her, not yet, anyway.

And she has no plans of slipping up any time soon.

This year, unfortunately, is a year on which Olivia knows full well she's not going to be able to get away with signing up for working over Christmas. She worked last year, and the year before that, and she's learnt by now that two years in a row is the most Cragen will let her get away with without crossing her name off the list and telling her to stop being a martyr and enjoy herself, let someone else deal with it all for once.

He doesn't seem to understand that she's not trying to be a martyr, not in the slightest; if anything, she's being rather selfish in trying to ensure she's working over Christmas.

She doesn't do it for them; not to ensure everyone else can enjoy themselves.

She does it to ensure that she has a distraction, something to occupy herself with, in order to avoid allowing herself to dwell upon the fact that she has no one, nowhere to go, no one to be with.

Is that really such a crime?

It's December 23rd. Eight in the morning on December 23rd, and her final day at work before she will be forced to take the next three off, sent home and told to 'spend it with her family.'

Spend it with her family, Olivia sighs to herself bitterly, Cragen's words echoing through her mind as she sits down at her desk, logs into her computer. What family? These people are detectives, for goodness sake, are they really not intelligent enough to realise that she hasn't got any family, that her long-established lie about visiting her aunt over Christmas is exactly that?

Apparently not. Or maybe they're just so wrapped up in their own lives, their own places to be, that they fail to pay enough attention to notice.

Her plans for the next three days aren't exactly festive. It's just her and Nick down for being on-call over Christmas, and Olivia knows he won't be in work; he's going to his family just outside Manhattan, close enough to make it back if needed.

That means that she'll be able to spend Christmas at work, finishing her paperwork, tidying her desk, anything to keep her from feeling alone, and no one will be there to notice.

She's got this all planned out.

She keeps her head down as everyone else arrives, moves towards their desks; she's deliberately arrived in early today because she can't stand the excited chatter that occurs in the doorway at this time of year.

They don't mean to upset her, Olivia knows that. Perhaps that isn't quite the right word to describe it. It doesn't upset her, as such; she would like to think that she's strong enough by now, has been through enough in her time that it takes rather a lot to properly upset her nowadays.

If anything, it makes her feel hollow inside, a little numb.

Maybe that's a sign she's been working Special Victims for far too long.

She tries her best to convince herself that she's almost looking forward to Christmas. Peace and quiet, she tells herself; what could be better than a few days of peace and quiet?

It hasn't exactly been the easiest of years.

It's strange; in some ways, those four days she spent with Lewis earlier this year feel like a lifetime ago, yet in others they feel so recent, so horribly raw, even after all this time. Whether or not Olivia finds it difficult to believe it was a few months ago now varies greatly, depends on her mood, on what has caused thoughts of those four days she spent held captive to enter her head once more.

Rather a lot can change in a few months. A few months ago she was traumatised, struggling to come to terms with all she had been through, but ironically a part of her had been happy, happier than she had been in a long, long time. A few months ago she'd had a boyfriend, had felt for the first time in a long time as though she wasn't alone, not completely. She had known that she had someone who cared about her; it hadn't mattered that it was only the one person, only Brian Cassidy, because she had become so accustomed to feeling completely and utterly alone that quite frankly anything more than nothing was something of a bonus. In those first few weeks after Lewis's attack, in particular, she had taken comfort in knowing that somebody cared, in knowing that she wasn't alone, that if god forbid something like that should ever happen to her again, someone would notice she was missing a little sooner than three days later.

With the benefit of hindsight, Olivia realises she should have known better than to allow herself to believe perhaps it could last forever.

It's been just over a month now since Cassidy left her.

Olivia supposes she can't exactly blame him, not really. She can't have been particularly easy to live with; as much as she would like to believe she recovered quickly from her ordeal, she knows full well that's not the case.

She makes a mental list of all the tell-tale signs she's most definitely not back to normal as her colleagues arrive one by one, desperate for some form of distraction from their festivities.

She still can't sleep without the light on in her bedroom; perhaps that's a good place to start. She can't remember the last time she slept for more than a couple of hours at a time; even when she was still staying at Cassidy's place, knew full well he had already conducted his own security check, she would find herself waking up in the middle of the night in a panic, unable to relax until she had double checked each and every window was locked, the front door was firmly bolted. Olivia dreads to even contemplate how overpowering her paranoia might have been had that apartment been on the ground floor.

That's not the last of the side effects. She feels as though she's constantly on edge, forever looking over her shoulder, permanently afraid that someone will pounce on her at any minute.

She can't get him out of her head. No matter how hard she tries, still she seems to see him everywhere. She'll be walking home from the subway station and she'll see a figure in the distance, almost jump out of her skin because in that brief moment of panic he looks horribly like her attacker.

It tends to take her a good few seconds of heavy breathing, of forcing herself to focus on the present, recomposing herself, for her to realise the figure she's allowed herself to become so afraid of isn't William Lewis at all.

Is this how her mother felt? That's the question she can't stop asking herself. On paper, of course, she and her mother suffered different attacks; there were several details as to what had gone on both in her apartment and on Long Island that Olivia had failed to mention in her account upon rescue, certain parts of it which had been so raw, so unbearable to even think about, that she hadn't been able to find it in her to put them into words. Those details will be kept a secret forever, she's determined about that.

No one will ever know that over the course of those four days with Lewis, Olivia Benson had become every inch the victim her mother had been before her. That is one secret she will never, ever reveal.

If she's completely honest with herself, Olivia knows full well she isn't coping. Perhaps she hadn't before, but she had most certainly realised it the night Brian Cassidy had ended things with her, the evening, a couple of months or so post Long Island, when he had sat her down and told her that he didn't think this was working anymore, the two of them, this whole dating thing. He had tried, he'd told her; he had tried being patient, tried to understand, to help her, but there was only so much he could take.

He had left her to pack her bags, dropped her back at her own apartment the following morning and that had been that.

It had been the first time she had set foot in that apartment since it had happened.

She had cried herself to sleep that night. She had cried herself to sleep because it had hit her all at once that she had no one once more, that the ever-so-brief period of her adult life in which she had, for once, had someone who cared about her, was over for good.

That was it, Olivia had been sure of it. She hadn't been able to believe her luck when Cassidy had wanted her initially; she was almost certain when he had ended things with her and she remains almost certain now that she's never going to get that lucky ever again. Who is going to want her now, now that she's broken, even more damaged than she was before?

Olivia doesn't particularly want to know the answer to that question.

She doesn't feel as though things have gone back to normal in the slightest, not even at work, she mused absentmindedly as she greets Fin and Nick, only just making it in through the door now. She doesn't feel they've gone back to treating her the same way as they did before; she feels as though they don't know quite how to act around her, resort to tiptoeing about the issue out of fear of upsetting her. Olivia supposes she can't blame them, not really. They're just trying to do the right thing.

That said, she does find it rather ironic that despite having all worked at SVU for a number of years now, still none of them seem to know quite how to act around her. It's different when it's somebody familiar who's the victim, Olivia supposes.

Perhaps it's just as well none of them know the full story.

She can't see how things are ever going to get back to normal. She just can't imagine it; can't even begin to contemplate how things are going to get better from here on in.

She feels even more alone than ever. Cragen and Fin and Munch and Nick and Amanda and all the others at work are still feeling guilty about the fact that no one noticed she was gone for three days, Olivia can tell that much, but they don't seem to feel guilty enough about it to check up on her once in a while. Not that Olivia would want them checking up on her, of course, but that's not the point. She suspects they know her well enough to realise that the last thing she wants is to be made to feel as though she's being monitored, as though they're keeping tabs on her.

Maybe they got that bit of it right, but they most certainly didn't make the right decision.

The point is, she's scared. She's scared that this could happen again, scared that if it does it might be worse, that she might be held for longer and still no one would notice, that perhaps next time they might all leave it a couple of days too late to realise she was missing.

Is there really no one in her life who cares enough about her to notice? Apparently not.

A part of her wonders sometimes whether things might have turned out differently had Eliot still been her partner, still been working at SVU. It's not sensible, Olivia knows that really; it's far from sensible to be allowing herself to even contemplate that.

He's gone. He's not coming back. He made that much perfectly clear two years ago, when he handed in his papers, stopped answering her calls, wiped her out of his life for good.

He's never coming back to her, no matter how badly she feels she needs him to hold her together. She's alone, all alone once again, most likely for good this time.

God, she really hates Christmas.


End file.
